


A Library of Love

by MarsBarsBaby



Category: Homestuck
Genre: How Do I Tag, Humanstuck, I Don't Even Know, Librarian Dave Strider, M/M, Strilondes, The parents all had good upbringings so they are better people, they're a giant family
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-10
Updated: 2018-05-13
Packaged: 2019-05-04 17:31:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,045
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14598105
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MarsBarsBaby/pseuds/MarsBarsBaby
Summary: Dave gets his first job at the town library with his sister Rose. One day Rose's girlfriend brings her best friend, Karkat,  with her to the library. Failed attempts at wooing and pining ensues.





	1. Gone with the Wind

**Author's Note:**

> So like I'm really bad at this forgive me.

Your name is Karkat Vantas and you fucking hate school.

You have two friends. One is named Gamzee Makara. He’s 6 foot tall and decked in clown makeup all the time, although he is usually too high to actually be scary at all. Honestly, he’d be dead or in jail if it weren’t for you.

Your other friend is named Kanaya Maryam. She’s like a second mother to you. She tries to coddle you into wearing something other than sweatshirts and jeans. You always tell her that it keeps away any unnecessary interactions with others. To which she respond with something akin to ‘you need to get laid’ which you’re sure is a message she is relaying from her girlfriend.

Also your classes are hard. Math takes up 50% of the circles and bolgias in your personal inferno. Science is right up there but you ‘get it’ better than math. English and writing comes so naturally to you that these classes are slow and useless to you. All in all, navigating this school to you is like navigating through Dante’s Inferno.

After School you meet up with your friends and you decide to study with Kanaya at a coffee shop near your school. The two of you also convinced Gamzee to come with you. After the three of you had walked around the school you all were standing on a small hill and Kanaya noticed that Gamzee’s backpack was unzipped. She tried to zip it up but in a split second, probably high, decision Gamzee started to roll down the hill. So, after a single roll down the hill, your idiot of a best friend lost half of the papers in his bag. It took another toll and half and the loss of all his papers, his shoes (which had been in his bag and not on his feet for some unknown reason), a water bottle, and some dandelions before he realized what was happening. At this point, papers were scattered and Gamzee was running after them. Kanaya has started videotaping on her phone, as well as, walking over to get some papers herself.

 You just kinda stand there and laugh at Gamzee. Kanaya keeps commenting on how Gamzee has screwed up as she climbs over a fence, phone still in hand. After about three minutes the two of them have gathered most of the papers and other things. Now you are trying to get them to start heading to the coffee shop. 

 “Come on Gamzee! You don’t even use those papers in school!” You yell at him.  
  
"But Karbro, that's motherfuckin' Littering." He tells you as he stuffs a pile of papers into his bag.  
  
"I don't care! I don't want to go back to that Hell!" You yell as you point at the school building. "Not until tomorrow!" You don't actually know why you are being so dramatic all of a sudden.  
  
"Chill Karbro, I gots most of it we can leave the rest." Gamzee Responds. He's got most of his papers back.  
  
"Kanaya let's go!" You yell at her.  
  
"I am the mom friend, so you say, therefor I need to clean up after Gamzee." She explains as she puts several papers in Gamzee's bag.

 “I don’t see your reasoning there but okay.” You complain. After a few minutes more the three of you are headed to the coffeeshop. Along the way Gamzee started picking dandelions. At one point he hands the bouquet of dandelions and asks you something along the lines of ‘Want some weed?’, in response to this you take the bouquet and throw it. After about a half an hour at the coffee shop studying you get a text telling you that a book that you put on hold in the public library is in. “Do any of you guys want to head to the library?” You ask your friends.

 “Nah bro, I’m going to go go home to sleep.” Gamzee says with a yawn before starting to get ready to leave.

 “My girlfriend Rose works there so I might as well.” Kanaya muses, getting up as well.

 “Okay then,” you concede.

 The three of you leave the coffee shop, you and Kanaya headed towards the public library, Gamzee towards his house.

 


	2. The Deserted Library Mystery

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay guys I'm sorry if this chapter doesn't explain it well enough but these are all the humanstuck versions of all the iterations of the Strilondes. 
> 
> Dirk Sr. = Dave's Bro  
> Dave Sr. = Dirk's Bro  
> Rox(y)anne Sr. = Rose's Mom  
> Rose Sr. = Roxy's Mom  
> Dirk, Dave, Roxy, Rose (jr) = unchanged  
> Hal = AutoResponder (Lil' Hal)  
> Rosemary = Rosesprite  
> Jasmine = Jasprosesprite^2  
> Drake = Davesprite  
> Darcy = Davepetasprite^2

Your name is Dave Strider and you are still not sure how your sister coerced you into working here.

See, you live in a small town in the middle of who knows where that has a population of about 3500 people. You live in a big house with all of your extended family. Your house is among three of the biggest and oldest houses in town. The big old house does not necessarily mean that your family is rich, the house itself is pretty rundown but it’s enough to house you and your large extended family, which you live with. 

The pantheon of adults in your house consists of your father Dirk Strider Sr., your mother Roxanne Lalonde Sr., your paternal uncle, David Strider Sr., and your maternal aunt Rose Lalonde Sr. Your father and uncle both work at the local news station, your aunt works as a freelance IT person for all of your hometowns technilogical problems, and your mother is an english teacher and novelist. 

There are nearly twice as many children in your house as there are adults. The oldest four are your parents quadruplets, of which you are one. The pecking order of the quadruplets is your older brother Dirk, who was born early in the afternoon on December 3rd. Followed by you later that evening, nearing midnight. Next is your sister Roxy, who was born in the wee hours of the morning on December 4th. Finally, at noon on that same day, was your sister Rose. About five years after you were born your parents had their fifth and final child, Hal. Your aunt had a pair of twins with an ex-spouse of her’s that she named Rosemary and Jasmine. Like your aunt your uncle also had two children with an ex-lover. Those childrens names are Drake and Darcy.

All in all, your house, heck even your whole street, is a very chaotic place. Often times you abscond to a nearby park to work on important things such as schoolwork and making music. This park is right next to the public library. On colder and/or weathery days you go in there. At some point after your sixteenth birthday your sister Rose started working there. A few weeks later and she had convinced you to start working there as well. Your eidetic memory and easy understanding of math proved to make this a really easy job. 

During you and your sister’s time as junior librarians at Skaia Public Library, your sister gained an admirer in the form of frequent library-goer Kanaya Maryam. The two of them hit it off in that ‘We are both genetically superior to others in literature and vocabulary’ sorta way. For a while you were neutral about this development but then you realized how happy Kanaya made Rose. You still tease Rose about Kanaya, you are still siblings after all, but, you really like that they found each other. 

One day Kanaya showed up at the library about an hour to an hour and a half before you and your sister had to close up the library. The only other person there was your boss, Crystal, who is also your next door neighbor. Today, unlike every other time you had seen Kanaya, she wasn’t alone. She had brought along a friend. This friend of hers was about two inches shorter than her, had a Mexican-American skin tone and a wild mop of black hair. You won’t deny that he looks kinda cute. You know you’ve seen him before, that’s inevitable given how small your town is, but, you can’t say you’ve ever talked to him. You greet him and Kanaya with a smile but he walks right past you. 

“Greetings and Salutations David,” Kanaya says to you, “Where is your sister?” 

“That depends on which one you are referring to. If you wish to know where Roxy is you are SOL because absolutely no one ever knows where she is at any given time. If you wish to know where Rose is, she’s in the children’s section tidying up because most of the little children have gone home. As for the locations of my female cousins whom i regard more as sisters that cousins, Rosemary is at home reading and Jasmine is at color guard tryouts.” You ramble without noticing that Kanaya left halfway through your explanation. After you stop talking you start to push your cart of books towards the adult fiction section of the library. You start to shelve the recently checked in books by author and placement in a series.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The character 'Crystal' is my friends OC. She isn't really plot pertinent i just added her in there so that the town sounds like a normal town not just a town full of Homestuck Characters. Also I had trouble finding a title for this chapter.


	3. Fangirl (Part One)

Your name is Karkat Vantas and you just now realized how many books you really read.

You always assumed that it wasn’t that that much and that everyone read as many books as you do and with the speed that you do. You read about a book and a half a day. Each book is roughly 200-350 pages on average. Sometimes there are exceptions like the day when you read all 600+ pages of ‘Carry On’ in a day or when you read nearly four different romance novels overnight. The next day at school you were extra hyper and extra angry because you were running on three hours of sleep and half a cup of black coffee. 

Anyway, the only reason that you discovered how many books you get at the library is because you ran smack dab right into another patron of the library. The stack of five books, which were pretty hefty because you were gonna try to reread all of the Mortal Instruments books this weekend, clattered all over the floor. You get up and dust yourself off. When you look at the person you ran into you discovered that it was the guy that greeted you and Kanaya when the two of you walked in. 

You had just walked past him because you wanted to make sure you got your books before the library closed. Now that you really look at him you realize that it’s Dave Strider. You know of him, he’s a kid in one of the three large families in town so he’s at almost every event in town because a sibling of his is in it. You have never talked to him because he’s a year ahead of you in school. This May will be the end of your freshman year (year 9) of high school and the end of Dave’s sophomore year (year 10). 

You never have really seen him up close though. His aviator shades are askew on his pale freckled face. His face has a pinkish tint to it but you can’t tell if he’s sunburnt or blushing. 

“Hey bro are you okay?” He asks you. 

“I am but why do you care? /I/ ran into /you/.” You reply.

“A: I was just being nice and 2: I am obligated to do so as per my job as a Skaia Public Library Junior Librarian.” He points to his name tag. Sure enough it says ‘Dave Strider: Junior Librarian’. 

“You work here? I haven’t seen you here before.”

“I only work here on Monday, Wednesday, Friday from 3:30 to 5:30. I also only started working here about two weeks ago.” You start picking up your books and he helps you. “What’s your name? I don’t think I ever asked you that and that’s just downright rude.” 

“Oh I’m Karkat Vantas; loud and angry freshman at your service.” You say with a note of laughter. For some reason you are being more awkward than normal but you can’t put your finger on it. 

You take your books and leave Dave to his organizing. About fifteen minutes later Kanaya and Rose walk up to Dave, who you just now noticed that you were staring at. You guess that their conversation was more than likely Rose asking for Dave to cover the rest of her shift so she could go and spend more time with Kanaya, as Rose and Kanaya left right after the conversation ended. 

Dave puts away two more books before coming over and sits next to you. “So the library closes in fifteen minutes. You’re the only non-employee here. In fact you me and Crystal are the only three people here. Do you want me to check out those books for you before I close up the library and remind Crystal that she has human children that take precedent over writing books?” He asks you in a long rambling fashion. You wonder if this is his only setting of speech. 

After a second of staring blankly at him, you reply,”Oh yea sure.” You hand him the books and your library card. You gather the rest of your things and walk up to the check out desk and wait for Dave to finish checking out your books. “Why do you work here anyway?” You ask him. 

“Partially because I come here often to work on music or homework or to chill and partially because Rose coerced me into it.” 

“Ah. Do you know anywhere else quiet I can read?”

“There’s a park just down the block. I always go down there when my familial brethren are bein’ really loud. I have a large family so it gets kinda loud. I could go with you after I close up shop.” 

“Okay yea you can come with me I don’t know what you would do but okay.” 

“Okay.” He hands you your bag of books and you wait by the door for about five more minutes while he talks to someone in the back. When he comes back he has his backpack and a guitar. He is followed by a heavyset woman with an unkempt mane of fiery red hair who looks to be in her mid to late fifties. She shoos the two of you out of the building and locks it behind her. You and Dave walk silently to the park.


	4. Fangirl (Part Two)

Your name is Dave Strider and it has come to your attention that being in the presence of a cute boy makes it very hard to focus on the Dewey Decimal System. 

 

The reason you didn’t know this before is because cute boys, cute people in general, seem to never go into the library. At all. Some of the more athletic type people at your school are cute and all but they tend to treat books like the books are kryptonite and they’re Superman. Those people still are cute and all but you can’t deny that intelligence has a certain appeal to it that most other things don’t. That of course doesn’t cover sexy wear but that’s not important. 

What is important is how you were staring at the cute boy and still managed to not notice he was walking towards you. As such he ran right into you and his books clattered to the ground. You stand while he gets up and dusts himself off. Your shades are askew and you are blushing just a little bit because he is really cute when he’s flustered. “Hey bro are you okay?” You ask him once he’s finally on his feet. 

“I am but why do you care? /I/ ran into /you/.” He retorts. 

“A: I was just being nice and 2: I am obligated to do so as per my job as a Skaia Public Library Junior Librarian.” You point to your name tag where it says ‘Dave Strider: Junior Librarian’. 

“You work here? I haven’t seen you here before.”

“I only work here on Monday, Wednesday, Friday from 3:30 to 5:30. I also only started working here about two weeks ago.” He starts picking up his books and you help him. “What’s your name? I don’t think I ever asked you that and that’s just downright rude.” 

“Oh I’m Karkat Vantas; loud and angry freshman at your service.” He says With a little laugh in his voice and you swoon. The only physical reaction that you give is adjusting your sunglasses as he takes his books and sits down to read. 

You shelve books for another fifteen minutes before Kanaya and Rose walk up to you. Rose asks if you can cover her if she takes off a little early with Kanaya. You tell her that it’s fine and there is only one other person in the library. The two girls leave and you put away the last two books on the cart. You walk over and sit next to Karkat and say to him, “So the library closes in fifteen minutes. You’re the only non-employee here. In fact you me and Crystal are the only three people here. Do you want me to check out those books for you before I close up the library and remind Crystal that she has human children that take precedent over writing books?”

“Oh yea sure.” He hand you the books and his library card. You walk over to the front desk and start checking out his books. “Why do you work here anyway?” He asks you.

“Partially because I come here often to work on music or homework or to chill and partially because Rose coerced me into it.” 

“Ah. Do you know anywhere else quiet I can read?”

“There’s a park just down the block. I always go down there when my familial brethren are bein’ really loud. I have a large family so it gets kinda loud. I could go with you after I close up shop.” 

“Okay yea you can come with me I don’t know what you would do but okay.” 

“Okay.” You hand him a bag with his books in it and go into the back office. You gather your backpack and guitar. You also spend about five minutes explaining to Crystal that her kids are probably hungry and that she should go feed them. She then gathers her things and shoos you out of her office. She almost pushes you and Karkat out the door before locking it. You and Karkat walk to the park.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I should mention that all the chapter titles are book titles. And that’s why this one and the previous one are titled Fangirl.


End file.
